Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been probing the limits of rapprochement with Moscow, hoping to isolate China by exploiting historical frictions between Russia and its eastern neighbour. 

The logic is borrowed from the Cold War playbook, when Washington drew Beijing away from the Soviet orbit. However, this will prove difficult to accomplish despite the optimism.

China and Russia are engaged in “no limits” strategic partnership, an unprecedented development, which sets it apart from the more cautious and limited relations that Moscow and Beijing enjoyed in the 1990s and 2000s. 

The “no limits” strategic relationship covers all aspects of bilateral relations, especially in trade, military, and political relations, without any third-party influence. It serves as a foundation for their pursuit of a multipolar world order.  

This means that today, Russia and China share few illusions about their differences, yet find comfort in pragmatic cooperation, and their shared distrust of the West. 

Relations between Moscow and Washington have nosedived since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. 

After the full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022, US-Russia ties reached a new low, evidenced by the massive sanctions Washington imposed on Russia, the strengthening of NATO through the addition of Finland and Sweden, and the reinvigoration of allied ties between the US and European countries.

Thus, the potential for direct talks between Washington and Moscow seemed minimal, especially as they would have sidelined the Europeans and endangered the transatlantic alliance. 

Yet, the past few months have shown that Washington is very much interested in rapprochement with Moscow, even at the expense of its allies. The driving force behind this attempt is the United States’ long-time geopolitical objective of shifting attention away from the European and Middle Eastern theatres to the Indo-Pacific region. 

The goal is to compete with China. Washington fears it might be overtaken militarily, both on land and at sea. 

Competing with and containing China, however, would not be possible with a completely estranged Russia. Parts of the US political establishment have long harboured the idea of normalising relations with Russia in order to corner China. 

There is some logic to this. Russia and China are far from genuine allies and have historically experienced tense relations, whether in the 19th century or during the Cold War, which culminated in a brief war in 1969 along their joint border. 

Advocacy for balanced approach 

Bilateral relations between China and Russia are quite complicated in Central Asia too. There, China has outpaced Russia as a major trade partner and investor to the five regional countries. 

Moreover, in recent years, China has made significant inroads into the security realm—the scope of military exercises and sales of Chinese-produced arms to Central Asian states has expanded.

Russia is also cautious about China’s ambitions in the South Caucasus, where Beijing signed strategic partnership agreements with Georgia and Azerbaijan in 2023 and 2024 respectively, and further upgraded the one with Baku in April this year. Beijing has also promoted new trade routes (for instance, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway) through Central Asia and South Caucasus which bypass the Russian territory.

Moreover, a broader perspective might suggest that the United States could limit Russia’s engagement with China. Since 2022, Russia’s foreign policy has leaned heavily toward Asia. Prior to the war in Ukraine, Russian policymakers were able to balance their ties between the West and Asia. 

Now, a pronounced emphasis on Asia prevails in Moscow. While this may be economically beneficial, Russian politicians and analysts have occasionally advocated for a more balanced approach. 

Lessons from the Cold War era? 

Though this could serve as a basis for better relations between Moscow and Washington, attempts to peel Russia completely away from China are unlikely to succeed. Comparisons with the Cold War era are few—and, in fact, the opposite is true. 

Russia and China are now quite comfortable with their bilateral relationship, and both view the United States as their major geopolitical competitor. 

Although the two share differences in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Beijing and Moscow do not experience the kind of tensions and disagreements that characterised Sino-Soviet relations during the Cold War. 

Back then, the Soviet Union and China were geopolitically on opposing sides. Both had large populations, vast territories, and nuclear weapons. Both were ambitious nations bent on increasing their international weight. Moscow often looked down on Beijing, and the latter resented it, resisting as much as it could. 

The two even fought a brief war on their common border. This meant that disagreements ran deep, and the background was favourable for the United States to make a move in the 1970s to build closer ties with China, at the Soviet Union’s expense. Surely, it was not the US-China rapprochement that ended the Soviet Union, but the move did place significant pressure on Moscow throughout the 1980s. 

It was not only the Soviet factor that motivated Washington and Beijing in the Cold War era. It was also about trade: China was gradually opening up, while the United States eagerly sought new, untapped markets.

China needed technology and investments, while the US wanted a cheap labour force. It all worked well then. But does a similar dynamic exist today between Russia and the United States, enough to oppose China more confidently? 

Flexible foreign policy 

While disagreements are at play, Russia and China are also quite flexible. Both the powers embrace a transactional style of relations that allows each to preserve manoeuvrability in foreign policy. For them, a full-blown alliance is uncomfortable and largely a product of the Western approach to foreign affairs. 

Even if Moscow and Washington were to reach a meaningful improvement in ties, Russia would still abstain from fully decoupling from China. 

Firstly, such a move would be economically impossible (as China’s share in Russia’s trade has increased). By early 2025, China's share in Russia's exports has grown to 31 percent. and in imports to 39 percent, according to the Central Bank of Russia. Secondly, both countries enjoy close security cooperation. 

Additionally, Russian politicians are unlikely to make a U-turn toward the West in an era increasingly characterised by multipolar politics. Moscow also understands that Washington’s ongoing attempts may be as temporary as the term of the current American administration. A positive attitude could swiftly change with a new president in 2028. 

Moreover, even if there is some foundation upon which the United States could build its policy of isolating China, it would still require Washington to extract itself from the rest of Eurasia. This has proven extremely difficult to accomplish over the past decades. 

Every American president since the early 2000s has attempted this pivot, only to become further embroiled in the Middle East—and now, in Ukraine. China has only benefited from Washington’s past and ongoing preoccupations.

As the slow progress in negotiations on Ukraine and the Israeli war in Gaza indicates, it is far from clear that the United States will be successful this time. Extraction from the Middle East and the wider Black Sea region is as costly and time-consuming as it is difficult to achieve.

The split in the China-Russia partnership, therefore, is highly unlikely. Given the lack of antagonism between the two, as well as other structural problems that the US is facing in other regions, which hamper quick recalibration of foreign policy toward the Indo-Pacific region.